Written for the 2017 IWRY Marathon. Inspired by the recent "Insert Scene" thread on Buffy-Boards, as well as the intriguing parallelism between Angel/Darla and Buffy/Spike. Fueled by all the years I've spent wanting to write a fic that gives Spike his comeuppance for the BuffyBot and failing to think of a plausible way to do it. So, yeah, definitely not a fic for Spike fans. You've been warned.
This is how I imagine things might've gone differently in the shows if the writers had been more practical about Spike, less allergic to letting the title characters be happy, and there had been no limits on crossovers. Enjoy!
It had been weeks, and Darla was still seething. She'd thought it was bad enough when Angelus ran away with that baby he refused to kill, but him tossing her out on her ass like yesterday's trash was so much worse.
She was the one who told him to leave or she'd kill him. He wasn't allowed to turn that around on her.
Even so, she might have been prepared to leave it be. As long as the soul was there, he would never be her boy. Not really. She'd accepted that a hundred years ago. The only thing that had made it a tolerable outcome this time was knowing that as long as he cared to protect that soul, he would have to remain miserable and alone. That miserable loneliness was what she wanted to see one more time before she left L.A. for good.
What she found instead, during her silent visit to the Hyperion, enraged her. She didn't care that Angel had his little detective agency back together, though she wanted to vomit at the way he now begged for their scraps instead of taking charge. No, what infuriated her was that Angel had the scent of the Slayer on him. Not to an extent to indicate that he'd slept with her—it might actually have been a balm to Darla's ego if even his precious Buffy was no longer perfect happiness for him—but he'd clearly spent quite a few hours in her close company.
Darla wasn't going to stand for it. He didn't get to just run back to his little cheerleader bitch whenever he felt like an emotional pick-me-up. After lifetimes together, he'd killed her for that cheerleader, who'd gone on to kill the Master. Buffy Summers had cost Darla her life, her sire, and the heart of her darling boy. What better use to put her second chance to than revenge?
†
Cordelia was in an extremely bad mood. Harmony's visit, though it had started out great, had turned into an utter disaster, Angel kept following her around like a puppy, making her feel like a jackass for keeping him at arm's length even though he freaking deserved it, and now she had a splitting headache because of the most ridiculous vision ever.
"Darla's going to attack Buffy?" said Wesley.
"Yep," said Cordelia, tossing back the pain pills Dennis had floated over to her and swallowing them dry. She'd gotten depressingly good at that.
"Buffy, as in Angel's ex who is a Slayer with a capital 'S'?" said Gunn. "Isn't one single vampire the kind of thing a Vampire Slayer is supposed to be able to handle?"
"It really is," Cordelia grumped. "So I figure we can just call her up and let her know so she and the Scoobies can take care of it, and then we can go back to looking for local cases with paying clients."
"You don't even wanna tell Angel?" said Gunn, glancing at Wes.
"Why should we?" said Cordelia. "We're the bosses of him now, so he can just hear about visions on a need-to-know basis and deal with it."
"Cordelia, you spent all day Tuesday insisting we show hospitality to your evil—and extremely irritating—vampire friend, who then betrayed us," Wes pointed out. "Your claim of the moral high ground has somewhat eroded. You shouldn't punish Angel by refusing to tell him about this vision, particularly when he's been trying so hard to earn back your trust."
"Are you saying he's already earned back both of yours?" she demanded. "After three months of him ignoring us and my visions for his vendetta against Wolfram and Hart, all it takes is a couple weeks for things to go back to normal?"
"What do you suggest we do?" said Wes. "We've forced him to work at that ridiculous table and fetch coffee for us, which he has done, and he's more than had our backs in every fight since he came to his senses."
"Yeah," said Gunn. "How much more crow do you expect him to eat? 'Cause it already stopped being fun, and at some point if we keep kicking him while he's down, he's gonna ditch us again, only this time we'll deserve it."
"We're not saying you should be in a hurry to get chummy with him," Wes went on when Cordelia opened her mouth to argue. "Gunn and I certainly aren't. But he's at least earned a certain amount of professional courtesy, up to and including being told about visions that concern someone he cares about."
"But Angel's obsession with Darla is exactly what started all of the problems, so why would the Powers that Be want to send him into a situation involving not just one, but both of his tiny blonde exes?!"
"Likely Darla is only targeting Buffy because she's jealous. Angel did go to pay his respects to Mrs. Summers the other day, and perhaps she found out about that," said Wes. "It could be that the Powers are giving him an opportunity to make up for the damage his obsession caused. After all, he has already killed Darla to protect Buffy once."
Gunn shrugged. "Makes sense to me."
Cordelia glared at both of them. "Fine," she said. "But we're calling Sunnydale first, and if it turns out they can handle it, then Angel doesn't need to know."
Wes and Gunn grimaced but didn't argue further.
Okay, so there's kind of a time-skip at the end of "Disharmony," after the A.I. team has taken down that ridiculous vampire pyramid scheme and Harmony has skedaddled, before Angel has the chance to present Cordelia with all the new clothes he bought for her. This happens in between, so Cordelia is still angry with him. It's so nice how the BtVS and Angel episodes I needed to use all lined up so well with each other. I don't like disregarding canon timelines, even for exciting fic ideas.
This fic is complete (or, well, the "pilot episode" of this fic is complete, but I would like to go deeper into this AU setup), so I will be posting a chapter a day until it's all up. Please let me know what you think!